Electrical slip ring platters are well-known devices used to electrically connect a rotating unit to a stationary unit where a typical cable or other wiring is not functional or less efficient for providing an electrical interface between the rotating and stationary unit. Typical platter or pancake-style slip rings consist of a rotating platter with multiple circular conductive traces and a stationary brush block that includes “brushes” of various designs that ride on or in a groove formed in the conductive traces to electrically connect the rotating platter to the stationary brush block.
Historically, “platter” slip rings have been designed for minimal height or thickness and have been used for both military and commercial applications with tight space requirements. Single or multiple concentric conductive rings forming the slip ring base have generally been formed from materials having a thickness within a range of 0.002 to 0.040 inches. Characteristically, the conductive rings for such slip ring bases have been spaced within a range of approximately 0.10 to 0.060 inches. A variety of different insulation and base materials have been used to create the platters, e.g., cast epoxy.
A grooved plate process is one common method of manufacturing pancake slip rings. In a typical grooved plate process, a grooved plate is prepared by rough machining a brass plate to approximately a “grooved plate” shape. The grooved plate is then annealed to minimize distortion during subsequent plastic curing and final machining. One side of the grooved plate is then machined to a final “grooved plate” shape. Peaks correspond to the bottom of the future rings, and valleys correspond to the future insulation barriers between rings. The “grooved plate” is then plated with nickel and a gold strike. A lead wire is then soldered or welded to individual ring features on the grooved plate. A glass cloth is then bonded to the plate to prevent the leads from entering the valleys of the plate (the fixture barriers between rings).
The plate and lead assembly is then loaded into a mold, which contains features to provide for internal lead routing, lead exit positioning and other rotor geometry requirements. The mold is vacuum cast with liquid epoxy to completely fill the internal detail of the mold. At this point, the assembly or rotor is a single piece with a continuous plate on one or two sides with internal epoxy insulation. The final machining step turns the exposed surface of the plate to separate the plate into individual concentric rings separated from each other with epoxy (filling the former valleys in the plate). In this process, after the rings are separated, insulating barriers between the rings are machined to final dimensions. In addition, at this step, the ring surface is machined to a final dimension. The ring groove patterns have taken various forms, e.g., V, U or double-V shaped, and the rings have typically been machined to achieve a desired surface roughness. The rotor is then nickel plated and then plated with a precious metal (usually gold or silver). It should be appreciated that this process is fairly complex and the density of the slip rings is limited by the machining requirements.
An electroformed ring process is another known process. A rotor and lead assembly is prepared by loading lead wires into a mold, which contains features to provide for internal lead routing, lead exit positioning and other rotor geometry requirements. The mold is then cast with a liquid epoxy to completely fill the internal detail of the mold and encapsulate the lead wires. Next, starter rings are prepared as follows. At the bottom of the ring groove, the lead wire conductor is exposed and prepared (generally by applying a fillet of conductive epoxy). The inside walls of the ring groove are coated with conductive plastic to form a continuous conductive starter ring for plating. The ring is electroformed by plating copper onto the starter ring using, for example, a high-build plating technology. High-build plating technology or high-build-up electroforming is a method of creating a thicker ring cross-section by plating up the starter ring, usually in a copper bath. The starter rings may be plated up with or without dielectric barriers between the rings. At this point, the assembly forms a single piece with discrete rings and leads embedded in epoxy insulation. The final machining step forms the final shape and texture of the rings and insulating barriers between the rings. The rings of the assembly are then nickel plated and then plated with precious metal (usually gold or silver).
A disadvantage of the electroformed rings process is that ring thickness is limited unless barriers are present during build-up of the rings. Further, extensive machining is typically required to create dielectric barriers to allow a build-up of the rings. Due to the lengthy times required to electroform the rings, plating solution can damage the slip ring materials, leak into leads embedded in the dielectric causing lead damage and electrical insulation failures. Dielectric materials can also interfere with the electroforming process. Additionally, the sides of the rings cannot be sealed with nickel, thus, allowing corrosion products to form and contaminate the electrical contacts. These contaminants can lead to contact failure and electrical shorts.
Another known process has used double sided printed circuit board (PCB) processes to build-up thick copper on top of a copper laminate foil (e.g., 0.13 inches thick) and formed grooves into the build-up copper by either controlled depth chemical etching a “U” groove or machining a “V” groove in the copper. However, with this process the ring copper heights that can be achieved, due to the PCB expose and related plating processes, and the depth of any groove formed in the rings is limited. Further, known plating times for such a process may approach 12 to 15 hours and typical maximum groove depths achievable with this process are within the range of 0.008 to 0.010 inches. Additionally, with this process there is no PCB dielectric base material barrier between the conductive trace rings and if a dielectric barrier is required, additional non-PCB base dielectric materials and processes are required.
In this process, the surface plating of precious metals, such as gold, requires forming multiple electrical contact points for each individual conductive ring on each platter PCB after individual conductive rings are routed out of a PCB manufacturing panel, which is labor intensive. Via holes are then filled with relatively expensive silver conductive epoxy using a manual operation, which is also labor intensive. When two platter PCBs are bonded together after ring groove operations, it is also difficult to adhere to a tight tolerance (0.001 to 0.004 inch) front to back conductive ring groove registration/concentricity requirement, which is highly preferable in high-density slip rings.
Some of the most recent requirements using an electrical slip ring assembly have severe space requirements with high circuit density that cannot readily be achieved by either the grooved plate process or the electroformed ring process. The above PCB processing method does not allow for PCB base material dielectric barriers or precious metal plating at the PCB manufacturing panel stage, which is desirable in many high circuit density design applications. This process also uses conductive electrical epoxy to fill holes and is currently limited to double-sided PCB designs.
What is needed is an electrical slip ring platter and a method of manufacturing the electrical slip ring platter that addresses the above-referenced problems, while providing an readily producible, economical electrical slip ring platter.